Asset Protection Made Easy

Asset protection made easy sounds like an impossible task, but Dr. Jim Dahle has set out to demystify this potentially complex topic with The White Coat Investor’s Guide to Asset Protection: How to Protect Your Life Savings from Frivolous Lawsuits and Runaway Judgments.

There are several components to a sound asset protection plan, and luckily, you’ve almost certainly got some of them in place based on what’s legally required of you and the types of investment accounts available to you.

Along with estate planning, asset protection is one of those areas peripheral to investing that is not a strong suit of mine. Both can be done in either a simple manner or an incredibly complex one, and both should be in place years before they might be needed.

Medical Malpractice

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Since this volume is aimed primarily at physicians, Dr. Dahle takes a good look at the likelihood of losing your personal assets to a malpractice judgment against you. Good news! It’s extremely unlikely.

Thankfully, I was never named in a malpractice suit, and the one lawsuit in which I was a defendant — which resulted from my volunteered time on the Hospital Board — “only” cost me lawyer fees and a few years of angst.

Some medical specialties are high-risk for lawsuits, namely surgeons and obstetricians, whereas pediatricians and psychiatrists see relatively few lawsuits. My specialty, anesthesia, and Dr. Dahle’s specialty, emergency medicine, are right in the middle.

The risk of losing your assets to an ex-spouse is infinitely higher. One way to mitigate this risk is to never marry, but it’s not a path Dr. Dahle recommends, nor do I, but you do you.

Love and Marriage

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